NO WONDER I FEEL SUSPICIOUS...

So, according to Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne, Britain won`t have to pay the whole £1.7billion bill to the EU after all.   Instead, we will only have to pay £850million with no interest charges and the bill will be paid in two instalments later next year. 

Now straight away it all sounds too good a deal to be true......and things that sound too good to be true seldom, if ever, are.   First off, I can`t believe that our `partners` in the EU would have agreed to such a deal, especially those countries like Germany and France who are supposed to be getting hefty payments rather than demands.   Next, even if it is all true after all, we will still be left with a bill of `only` £850million - that`s £850,000,000 and I can think of so many things we could be doing with that kind of cash rather than sending it off to the black hole of Brussels.  As for the timing of the whole thing, isn`t it odd that this `deal` has arrived less than a fortnight before the Rochester and Strood by-election and isn`t it even more odd that the first interest-free`repayment` will not have to be made until next June, just a month after the General Election?

In the next few days there will be claim and counter claim about the validity of this whole business and, like most things EU, it will be virtually impossible to see through the smoke and mirrors and arrive at a definitive conclusion.   Now maybe I have an ingrained suspicious mind - after 75 years of observing politicians it`s hardly surprising - and so my suspicions are aroused by this so-called deal but more worrying perhaps is that as well as feeling suspicious, I have the distinct feeling that I`m being cheated yet again.